Michelle Gabel/The Post-StandardNew York State Trooper Richard Ellis, left, was involved in a risky and life-saving operation to get a woman off the road who was traveling at high speed in the wrong direction on Interstate 81. At right is Captain Jeffrey D. Raub, the zone commander. They are shown at the trooper substation near Hancock International Airport.

If you’re a police officer, working late as Christmas Eve turns into Christmas morning, you hope your shift will be a silent night. State Troopers Richard Ellis and Douglas Burdick weren’t so lucky. A few weeks ago, they got a call about a robbery in the early hours of Christmas day. A man told police he’d been robbed while walking away from a Nedrow tavern.

Ellis and Burdick, joined by Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office deputies, talked to the victim and went looking for suspects. They spotted a young man who matched the description. After being questioned, the teen confessed to helping with the robbery, Ellis said. That led to an arrest and a morning’s worth of paperwork.

By 5 a.m., the troopers were down to the last hours of their shift. Ellis was starting to think about going home to see his family on Christmas morning ... when he and Burdick took another a call from a dispatcher.

A southbound SUV was going the wrong way through Syracuse, on Interstate 81. The driver had ignored the honks and flashing headlights of other motorists. Ellis and Burdick, based in LaFayette, understood what was at stake: Either they found a way to get the car off the road, or someone — maybe many people — could be dead, and fast.

The troopers ran to separate state police vehicles. In less than a minute, they were southbound on I-81. “We continued south and we came up on the Tully exit and we saw the vehicle,” Ellis said. For a few moments, the troopers drove parallel to the wrong-way driver, a woman whose SUV was traveling in the northbound lane at about 65 mph.

The troopers flashed their lights and hit their sirens. The driver turned and stared across the median at them, Ellis said.

She kept going.

“When she (looked at us), it was like she wasn’t there,” Ellis said. “Something was definitely wrong.”

The troopers knew they were running out of time. On the interstate, drivers traveling in the correct direction aren’t braced for oncoming vehicles. If anything, a wrong-way driver creates a brief and potentially deadly illusion of being part of the regular flow of traffic.

“Without intervention,” said state police Capt. Jeffrey Raub, “we knew we were looking at serious or fatal physical injury.”

Burdick sped ahead on I-81, until he found a lane for police U-turns near the Cortland County border. He used it and stopped his vehicle in the northbound lane. The woman kept coming. When she saw Burdick’s vehicle, she went around it.

Just behind Burdick, Ellis came to a realization. The driver, for whatever reason, was not about to stop. Within seconds, some innocent driver could get hit head-on.

Ellis hit the gas, pulled his car into the northbound lane and began pursuing the woman on the wrong side of the interstate.

Looking back on it, Ellis said, he had no time to be afraid. The two vehicles were traveling on a long straightaway, and no cars — at that instant — were coming the other way. Ellis accelerated. The woman had slowed her SUV to about 45 mph. Ellis — desperately trying to both look ahead for oncoming traffic while keeping an eye on the wrong-way driver — came up on the side of her vehicle, using his siren and flashing his lights. When the woman either ignored him or didn’t see him, Ellis took the last step available to him:

He pushed his car to the right, as gently as possible, and forced the woman’s SUV onto the median.

“It was an optimal situation,” he said. “There were large shoulders on both sides of the highway, and a dry median with no water.”

Once both vehicles had come to a stop, Ellis walked to a window of the SUV. He said the driver looked at him and asked:

“Why did you hit me?”

After her blood alcohol tested at 0.12, Ellis said state police charged Heather Fritzen, 25, of Baldwinsville, with driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and other traffic offenses. The woman was apologetic, Ellis said. She told investigators she’d had a few glasses of wine, before she went looking for a toy store in Syracuse.

She didn’t realize, she said, that she was on the wrong side of the road.

While Ellis describes his wrong-way journey on I-81 as part of the job, Raub — his supervisor — sees it differently. “His actions,” Raub said, “were nothing less than heroic.” As for other holiday drivers in greater Syracuse, they traveled casually that day to yuletide destinations.

They couldn’t know that some among them, on a quiet Christmas morning, may have already received the ultimate gift.